Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Bee Talk

Bees buzz around, but do they talk? Not with words and voices like we humans do. So how do they know which flowers have the most nectar and how to locate them from their hive? How do threatened bees tell others to come help defend their home? Honeybees may not speak as we do, but they do have other methods or forms of communicating.

1) What strange behavior do honeybee’s use to communicate or talk to each other? What is it commonly called?
Honeybees dance to communicate to each other! Commonly called the “Waggle Dance”, it is a specific series of movements that bees use to tell each other where to find the food source.

Scout bees fly from the colony in search of good pollen and nectar sources. When one finds some food-rich flowers, she flies back to the hive to tell all about it. She walks up onto a comb with the other workers gathered around her and begins her dance. She runs a precise pattern that tells the others the direction, distance, and even how plentiful the flowers are.

First she runs a straight line, the turns left and circles back around to where she started. She runs the line again and then turns right, circling back around to her starting point. She may repeat this figure-8 pattern up to 100 times.

If the food is more than 300 feet away, she waggles her body as she runs. The line she runs tells exactly where the food is in relation to the sun. Her waggles tell how far away the food is. The forager bees then follow her directions and fly off to gather the pollen and nectar.
Check out this video to see a waggle dance:

2) What is another major method of communication? Can you list an example?
Honeybees also use odors to communicate. Bees can put off a certain smell, called a pheromone, and it has a specific meaning to the other bees. Pheromones are chemicals made by animals to send signals or messages. Many animals use pheromones, even humans. Honeybees have one of the most complex set of pheromones used in the animal kingdom. They have fifteen different glands used for making these chemicals. Bees receive the chemical message, or “smell” the pheromones, with their antennae.

For example, if the hive is being attacked by an animal, guard bees release an alarm pheromone when they sting the attacker that smells like bananas. As soon as other bees smell that particular pheromone, they come help defend the hive.

Honeybees use these smells to communicate many different messages within the hive. A new hive is marked with a lemon scented pheromone. The queen has her own pheromone that tells the colony she is alive and “all is well”, and another pheromone is released which keeps the queen’s attendant bees nearby.

Scout bees bring back the smells of the various flowers they have visited. It is believed that the scent of the flowers is a vital part of the waggle dance as well. The dance tells the physical coordinates and the smell tells which flowers to look for.

Honeybees also use taste. A scout bee will share the nectar she gathered with other bees. This tells them the quality of the food source as well as exactly what kind of flower the food came from. This may also be important to honeybees to decide which patch of flowers should be foraged.